Steven Feierman specializes in African history. He is the author of Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), The Shambaa Kingdom: A History (University of Wisconsin Press,1974), a co-author of African History: from Earliest Times to Independence (Longman, 1995), co-editor of The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (1990), and author of many articles about memory, religion, and healing in Africa.
Professor Feierman has doctoral degrees in both African history, from Northwestern University, and social anthropology, from Oxford University. He has spent many years living and working in East Africa. Prior to coming to Penn he was professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught from 1969 until 1989, and at the University of Florida, from 1989 to 1995.
He has been the dissertation advisor to a great many distinguished African historians, including Thomas Spear, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Randall Packard, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of African History, Emory University, Ismail Abdalla, Associate Professor, the College of William and Mary, Jonathon Glassman, Associate Professor, Northwestern University, Keletso Atkins, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, James Giblin, Associate Professor, University of Iowa, Claire Robertson, Associate Professor, Ohio State University, and more than twenty others.